


You Were My New Dream

by cascountingfreckles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: DeanCas - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, canon!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cascountingfreckles/pseuds/cascountingfreckles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Canon!Verse, Post-season 8</p>
    </blockquote>





	You Were My New Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Canon!Verse, Post-season 8

It was just another job.

_Pound._

This was never supposed to happen.

_Pound._

“Dean!” The cry ripped from his lungs and his body hurled gracelessly over tree roots and dirt potholes—so unfair when, if there was ever a greater desire to be able to fly, Castiel was all too human to do so.

He had spent months angsting over his lost grace, only focused on what he had been as opposed to the new opportunity that lay before him as a human. He had thought he wanted his grace back for his own freedom to fly again and his abhorrence for being weak and useless.

That changed when he found his grace again. Not the original. Something better, something warmer. He found it in a pair of green eyes and messy hair, soft flannel shirts and worn leather, bitter coffee and sweet whiskey.

 _“I can be your grace, Cas.”_ Dean had whispered into his hair as Cas clung to him late one night, woken from nightmares of falling and emptiness and suffocating smallness.

Now, when he thought he finally had everything he wanted, he lacked one thing he needed to keep it safe within his grasp. He had never so much wanted to be what he once was as he did now; to be able to fly, to be able to heal any injury.

But he was only human.

And now he was going to lose it all.

His knees crashed to the mud, his heart wanting to explode in his own chest.

His hands hurled away the werewolf carcass, desperate to get to the object underneath. It was only the most precious thing this world had to offer him—that his entire existence had offered him, however briefly. 

Those same hands full of wrath and adrenaline-boosted strength now melted in tenderness as they gently wrapped around Dean's body.

“Dean,” he said again, one shaky hand rising to clean his hunter's face of the blood and the grime. His heart clenched painfully when the freckles reappeared, the ones he knew by heart. The ones he knew he could count in the dark because he had, as Dean dosed off in his arms safe in their bed. Dizzying nights that saw kisses rather than killing and heart-shaped bruises rather than new battle scars. Almost as many nights as the number of beloved freckles, but still not enough. Never enough.

“Cas,” Dean called back, pain seeping through his voice even as he tried to hide it. Green eyes finally flickered open and latched onto blue less than a foot away.

“Dean!” Cas's heart leapt and he pulled Dean even closer against him.

“It's going to be okay, Dean.” Cas gritted out with all the ferocity that spoke to his days of being a creature full of righteous, celestial power. “I'm going to save you, I swear. You're going to be—”

“Cas,” Dean interrupted, raising his hand weakly. “I can't feel—I can't feel my legs.”

“No,” Cas shouted, “Dean, we can still fix this!”

“Cas,” Dean stifled a gasp as another wave of pain hit him, pulling strength enough to fit his palm to Cas's face. “No we can't.” 

A broken, feral cry tore through the woods, like a beast wounded and on fire. Castiel barely registered that it had come from his own lips as his body convulsed in acute pain coming from within, overwhelming the trifling physical wounds on the surface.

Suffocating heat crowded into his face and leaked out in small trails down his cheeks. 

“Cas, please,” Dean whimpered, his hand squeezing slightly in effort to break through Cas’s insurmountable grief.

Cas drew blood biting his own lip, willing himself to be stronger for Dean. Dean had lived his entire life trying to be strong for everyone else, trying to put all of his emotions aside time after time. 

His own hand stroked Dean's face, caressing the small dips and planes of his golden skin that faded with every passing minute. Trying to memorize everything, like an artist painting the very last sunset.

“Dean,” his voice was so small. “I can't—” his breath hitched as his hand rose to grip Dean's, still cradling Castiel’s dirty, tear-streaked face.

Cas moved his lips to kiss Dean’s palm, making Dean’s breath hitch as he bit back a moan.

“I gave up everything.” He continued, “I'm not an angel, I have no family. Just you. If you're gone...then what's the point of me?” 

Anger flared in Dean's eyes, breathing the life Cas loved so much back into the green.

“Don't.” Dean voice bite out, “Don't you say that to me, Cas.”

“We're family. We need you,” Dean's words echoed from the past. “Sam, too.”

Dean coughed to the side, blood painting ground that was already stained red. He heaved a couple of shallow breaths before continuing.

“So you're going to keep going. Be human and live a shitty human life with stupid jokes and bad telenovelas and—” a smile ghosted over Dean's lips, “—on a good day, a slice of pie.”

“You find something to look forward to, at the end of the tunnel.” Dean coughed again and looked back up, “'Cause you're gonna need something good to dream about.”

“But Dean,” Cas spoke softly, resting his forehead on Dean's, “You were my new grace. You were my dream.”

“I know, Cas.” Dean tilted his head to let their lips brush.

“And you were mine,” he whispered.

Castiel felt his heart ripping. The pain was too much. Why couldn't he be dying, too? He thought as he pressed his lips to Dean's in a real kiss; their tongues gliding and teeth biting and everything either of them could ever feel for another human being poured into this moment. Passion, lust, tenderness, love. It was all there, because there would never be another opportunity.

As Dean's life dwindled away, as every breath hurt, as his world started trying to fuzz at the edges and his mind told him to sleep, he still gave everything to this last kiss. 

Maybe if they were always connected like this, they could just share one heart and one set of lungs. 

Castiel pulled away and Dean's body shuddered as he collected enough air to speak again.

Dean lifted his eyes to focus intently into Cas's.

“You look after my little brother. You watch out for Sammy.”

Cas nodded and blinked away more tears, unable to speak himself but gripping Dean tighter. His body was so cold now. Too cold.

“And Cas?”

“Mm,” Cas managed to dredge up.

Dean smiled, remembering how he had once thought Cas was leaving him on earth for good. Back in that bar, on the night when so much changed.

_So this is it? E.T. goes home._

It had turned out so different from how he'd thought. Back in the bar, Dean had wanted to say “stay”,  _stay with me._ Now he was the one leaving. Leaving in the arms of someone he loved—and it was far better and far more painful than he had ever imagined. But he couldn't say “come” _._ Not yet. Cas had to live for a while before that.

So he settled for something else.

Reaching up, his fingers trembled as they settled tenderly on Cas's brow. Even as black began swallowing his vision, knowing that that blue—the exact shade he had come to love—would be the last thing he'd see. 

“Be good.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments/etc.! Much appreciated!  
> And sorry for this ficlet. I'm a terrible person. Just know, I also suffered at my own hands writing this. I usually avoid even reading character deaths like the plague (unless they're temporary deaths).


End file.
